Our day trip out to Yehliu, Jiufen, and Shifen. Absolutely beautiful seas – they were a joy and certainly provided some respite from the scorching sun!

Once again, we visited Addiction Aquatic on our first day – amazing, as always. You can read my previous review of the 立吞 restaurant here. We actually also visited the grill restaurant!

The freshest oysters, ever. Creamy, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. I’d definitely recommend that you try some grilled fish at Addiction – we had some grilled 紅喉魚 inside, and had some tuna jaw outside. The flesh is so tender and sweet as it’s grilled with shio, enhancing the sweetness of the fish :’)

Ah yes, back to Shifen here – this teahouse, known as 阿妹茶樓, is supposedly the teahouse that looks like Yubaba’s teahouse from Spirited away!

This is called 青蛙撞奶, basically – the classic bubble tea! While I typically don’t eat black pearls in Singapore because my mum thinks that it’ll give me cancer, these were truly delicious – although I couldn’t finish them all :p

This is Ximen, where our apartment was. We stayed at an Airbnb apartment about 5 minutes away from the MRT station from Emei street, and it was soooo convenient. We could easily head back to the apartment at around 11-12.30am and it’d be totally cool and mostly safe 🙂 Lots of people around the area, the photo above was taken at about 9pm! I’d definitely recommend you visit Ximen for shopping – all the Korean beauty shops are there (TFS, Innisfree, Etude, Skinfood, Tonymoly, etcetc) and there are quite a number of general beauty stores (Mirada, 86 Shop, Watsons, Cosmed, Sasa) that you can visit!

We also visited the Hello Kitty Cafe :> While it is a cute experience and an opportunity to take photos with so many Hello Kitty things, the food… isn’t the best. Cute though!

Hide from Dad was amazing as always as well! I chose to order the same dish, while my friends ordered the Premium Sashimi Don, Basic Sashimi Don, and Halibut Don. We also shared a prawn-head miso soup which was greeaaaaaat 🙂 Sweetness galore – the prawn heads were soooo sweet! My previous review here.

One of the things I’ve bought without fail every year from Taipei are these Made in Taiwan shoes – you can find them for about 190-199NT throughout the night markets! So comfy, and they never gave me any blisters 🙂

Early last year, when I was still really new to all my beauty products, I was desperately hunting for places where I could get samples to try – I mean, skincare ain’t cheap! I didn’t even have a proper toner, sunscreen, or whatnot…

I came across the Sample Store, where they’ll send you samples to try in Singapore! They’re actually partnered with Singpost. Here’s how it works: you either pick free samples to checkout, or you pick up to 4 samples as part of a $5.99 order (or what they call a ‘handling fee’).

Pictured above:

Biore UV AQUA Rich Watery Gel (15ml)

Bioré’s Makeup Remover Cleansing Gel (20ml)

Sunplay Superblock SPF130 PA+++ (6ml)

White Formula Super Moist Toner (35ml)

White Formula Super Moist Light Toner (35ml)

My Beauty Diary Vanilla Moisturizing Aroma Mask x2 (23ml)

For instance, I’ve pictured 2 separate orders above: the two Bioré products on the left are free! While I do own the Bioré Watery Essence, and the old formula of Bioré’s Makeup Remover Cleansing Gel, I’ve never tried these new versions before – so this is a great way for me to try before I buy! 🙂 (plus, these sample sizes, 15ml and 20ml, are absolutely perfect for me to travel with!!!)

I picked Sunplay because I own the spray version, but I’ve never tried the ‘original’ – wanted to see how it compared to Bioré’s! The packaging for this sample is SO. CUTE.!!!!!! It’s basically a tiny version of the actual product, and it even includes a little ball bearing inside for you to shake it up :> I’ve yet to try this because I’ve got too many sunscreens open right now, so… yes!

I picked the White Formula Toners as I’ve heard lots of good things about them. I saw them all over the place when I was in Taiwan last year, and they’re supposedly the bestselling toners at their price range in Taiwan? If they’re somehow live up to my HG Hada Labo toners (they seem very similar!!), I’m all up for trying this!!

As for the MBD masks…. These aren’t the actual masks I received in my order 😀 Yes, I did order MBD Vanilla Masks, butttttt that was last year when I hadn’t started my foray into sheet masking yet. After using these MBD mask samples, I was like w h o a this shit is good – and then I went to buy lots more when I was in Taiwan :p

I suspect that Bioré’s samples are free because Bioré holds their own promos to send out free samples as well, so they’re naturally free. Ok but I should warn you guys that you should probably google some of the ‘paid’ samples before you order them? I noticed that Acnes samples are available FOC on the SG website, but they’re ‘paid’ on SampleStore!

As for the $5.99 order, I might be a bit auntie in this sense but I usually only pick items that are ‘worth it’. Like some of the samples are a bit ‘ehhh’… like they only include a 1x1ml foil sachet for what’s basically $1.50!?! Yes I’ve actually come across samples like this on the site before. Okay like honestly if they only want to send me 1ml I might as well go to Watsons (where most of the products available for sampling are on sale) and just squeeze >1ml onto my hand and try it on the spot for free right?? If you really want me to buy your product, I feel like you should at least provide me with enough product to sample it on my whole face…

Word of warning though: their samples (be it free or paid) run out REALLY fast!!! For you to get the samples that you’re interested in, you have to be pretty diligent in ~stalking~ their site… or waiting for their EDMs heh.

Do any of you source your samples from other sampling websites? Share them with me in the comments!

Thank you everyoneeee for being so patient with me for the past 3-4 months! I’ve finally got more time on my hands now that I’m preparing to start university, so I’ll be able to post more often now 🙂 A few weeks ago, I passed the 100 followers, AND the 10,000 total views milestones – so once again thank you guys for supporting my blog!

I’ll be doing a quick post today, since it’s my usual posting Sunday – I have quite a few more posts lined up for the next few weeks! I admittedly didn’t use (m)any new masks this month, so I’ve only included pictures of the ones that I haven’t previously tried before. Round 2 of mask empties, let’s go!

Somehow, it seem as though every single Etude House Mask I’ve tried has been all I want in a mask – fits well, smells fine, is long-lasting (up to an hour++), feels good, hydrates my skin immediately, and lets me wake up with glowing skin!! No gimmicks, nothing – I’m very pleased to have gotten 40 of em during the EH sale last November 🙂

Yeah seriously 3W Clinic. I first tried your Fresh Milk Mask Sheet a few months ago, but the smell was so overpowering I couldn’t stand to ever use it again. Now I’ve tried your Snail Mask Sheet – and it was just TERRIBLE to my skin!?!?!?!?!? As you guys know I have really hardy skin, and I’ve never reacted to anything…. until this. When I applied the mask to my face, my face began to sting like nobody’s business – I thought that it might be the initial application, but holy crap my face STUNG like mad even after a couple of minutes. My mum was like TEAR IT OFF HELLO so I thoroughly cleansed my face with Micellar Water and Hada Labo Foaming Wash, and even then my skin turned a little red 😦 It’s possible that it simply isn’t suitable for my skin, but damn that was bad.

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I'm Allison, and I run milliefeuille, a Singapore beauty and lifestyle blog. I love reviewing the latest and most effective Asian (and the occasional Western) skincare and beauty products, so follow me on my quest to get the best skin possible! :)